“What a thing it would be,” Mr. Goliadkin said half-aloud, “what a thing it would be if something was amiss with me today, if, for instance, something went wrong—a stray pimple popped out somehow or some other sort of unpleasantness occurred; however, so far it’s not bad; so far everything’s going well.” Very glad that everything was going well, Mr. Goliadkin put the mirror back in its former place, and, despite the fact that he was barefoot and still wearing the costume in which he was accustomed to go to bed, he rushed to the window and, with great concern, began searching with his eyes for something in the courtyard on which the windows of his apartment gave. Apparently whatever he was searching for in the yard also satisfied him completely; his face lit up with a self-satisfied smile. Then—though not without having first peeked behind the partition into the closet of his valet Petrushka and made sure that Petrushka was not in it—he tiptoed to the desk, unlocked one of the drawers, rummaged about in the hindmost corner of that drawer, finally took out a shabby green wallet from under some old yellow papers and trash, opened it warily, and peeked carefully and with delight into its remotest secret pocket. Probably a wad of green, gray, blue, red, and multicolored bits of paper looked back quite affably and approvingly at Mr. Goliadkin: with a beaming face he placed the opened wallet on the table before him and rubbed his hands energetically as a sign of the greatest pleasure. Finally he took it out, his comforting wad of banknotes, and for the hundredth time—that is, counting only from yesterday—began to re-count them, painstakingly rubbing each leaf between his thumb and index finger. “Seven hundred and fifty roubles in banknotes!” he finished finally in a half-whisper. “Seven hundred and fifty roubles…a significant sum! An agreeable sum,” he went on in a voice trembling and slightly faint with pleasure, squeezing the wad in his hands and smiling significantly, “quite an agreeable sum! An agreeable sum for anyone! I’d like to see the man now for whom this sum would be negligible! A man can go far on such a sum…”

“What is this, though?” thought Mr. Goliadkin. “Where is Petrushka?” Still wearing the same costume, he peeked once more behind the partition. Again Petrushka was not to be found behind the partition; there was only a samovar left on the floor there, angry, excited, and beside itself, constantly threatening to run away, and babbling to Mr. Goliadkin heatedly, quickly, in its abstruse language, lisping and swallowing its R’s—probably saying something like, “Take me, good people, I’m perfectly ripe and ready.”

“Devil take it!” thought Mr. Goliadkin. “The lazy brute may finally drive one beyond the last limits; where’s he lolling about?” In righteous indignation he went to the front hall, which consisted of a small corridor at the end of which was the door to the vestibule, opened that door a crack, and saw his servitor surrounded by a decent-sized crowd of sundry lackeyish, domestic, and accidental riffraff. Petrushka was telling some story, the others were listening. Apparently Mr. Goliadkin liked neither the subject of the conversation nor the conversation itself. He immediately called Petrushka and went back to his room thoroughly displeased, even upset. “This brute is ready to sell a man for a groat, all the more so his master,” he thought to himself, “and he did, he surely did, I’m ready to bet he sold me for a penny. Well, so?…”

“They’ve brought the livery, sir.”

“Put it on and come here.”

Having put on the livery, Petrushka, smiling stupidly, went to his master’s room. He could not have been more oddly costumed. He was wearing extremely shabby green lackey’s livery with frazzled gold braid, apparently made for someone a whole two feet taller than Petrushka. In his hands he was holding a hat, also with braid and with green feathers, and at his hip he had a lackey’s sword in a leather scabbard.

Finally, to complete the picture, Petrushka, following his favorite habit of always going about casually, in home-style, was barefoot now as well. Mr. Goliadkin inspected Petrushka all around and apparently remained pleased. The livery had obviously been rented for some solemn occasion. It was also noticeable that during the inspection Petrushka looked at his master with some strange expectation, and followed his every movement with extraordinary curiosity, which greatly embarrassed Mr. Goliadkin.

“Well, and the carriage?”

“The carriage has come, too.”

“For the whole day?”

“For the whole day. Twenty-five, in banknotes.” 2

“And they’ve brought the boots?”

“And they’ve brought the boots.”

“Blockhead! Can’t you say they’ve brought them, sir? Bring them here.”

Having expressed his satisfaction that the boots fit well, Mr. Goliadkin asked for tea, a wash and a shave.